UTC and EEI filed a joint opposition to the petition for reconsideration or clarification ("petition") by the National Cable and Telecom Association (NCTA), COMPTEL and tw telecom inc., which seeks to further reduce the rate for telecommunications attachments on utility poles. UTC and EEI explained that the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) should reject the petition because it is procedurally defective and proposes relief that is contrary to the statute, arbitrary and capricious.

UTC and EEI stated that the petition is procedurally defective because it proposes a new rate structure that is beyond the scope of the FCC's pole attachment order, which could have been proposed at an earlier stage in the proceeding. They then explained that the petition is contrary to the statute, arbitrary and capricious because it would introduce five or six definitions of "cost" into the rate formula that have no basis in the statute or case law or economic theory; these different percentages would effectively nullify the provisions in the statute that apportion the cost of the unusable space among attaching entities and which guarantee cost recovery of 2/3ds of the unusable space costs. UTC and EEI also opposed the Petition for proposing alternative relief that would lower the telecom rate down to either the cable rate or a rate that excludes capital costs, whichever is higher. They explained that the Petition presents no new facts that would justify reconsideration of this alternative relief which is akin to the relief that the Commission already considered and rejected.